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Spring 2011
Mar 03,2015

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INTL 382 - CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

This course is about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Traditional studies of the Middle East did not include North Africa. However, because of their common cultural, historical, religious, and political dynamics the old Middle East/Near East regions and the North African countries of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania must be studied and understood as a single geo-political and cultural region. We study MENA because its contributions to human civilization, strategic location, vast oil resources, and growing political power. Historically, the region has been the birthplace of three monotheistic religions¿Judaism, Christianity, and Islam¿as well as a repository for Greek philosophical and scientific thoughts that were later transmitted to the ¿West¿ through the works of scholars who were native to this region. The region¿s own contributions to the Western civilization, and indeed to the world civilization, have been quite significant. They include the development of agriculture, writing, and algebra; important discoveries in medicine, chemistry, astronomy, and architecture; great artistic and literary works; and profound social, philosophical and spiritual thoughts. From the rise of Islam in the 7th century to the present time, social and political changes in MENA have had direct impact on many of the developments in the rest of the world. However, the events of the last five decades have had a more profound impact. Among these are: Israeli-Palestinian conflict; overthrow of monarchy in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Iran; the Algerian revolution; four Arab-Israeli wars; establishment of OPEC; civil wars in Lebanon, Yemen, Turkey, Afghanistan and the Sudan; Iran-Iraq war; growth of religious orthodoxy and ¿fundamentalism;¿ struggle of the Palestinians, the Kurds, and the Berbers for self-determination; Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; military attack on Iraq by a US-led coalition in 1991 and in 2000; and the burgeoning of civil societies, media of communications, and human rights movements.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours